The Ghana Health Service says the Greater Accra Region is recording high numbers of COVID-19 positive cases in recent times.

It said the region is currently carrying about 90% of the country’s burden of active cases.

Speaking on Eyewitness News, Dr. Franklin Asiedu Bekoe, the Director of Public Health at the Ghana Health Service, said within one week, about 2,000 postive cases have been recorded.

“We have about 3,165 active cases, so clearly, within the past one week, we’ve added about 2,000 cases to what we used to have. There is an obvious peak in what we previously had. About 90% of the cases are in Greater Accra and 9% in Ashanti, and just a little under 1% in Volta Region,” he said.

According to Dr. Bekoe, the increasing number of cases can be attributed to the outbreak of the Omicron variant of the virus in Ghana, adding that Ghana’s vaccination drive has not witnessed a major setback.

He also blamed the upcoming Christmas festivities for the spike in cases.

“I think that clearly the surge is because of the presence of the new variant. When you see a surge then it means that something different has occurred. What is new is the detection of the Omicron variant because we can see that we haven’t changed much with regard to our adherence to protocol, our vaccination drive is also course. Because of the Christmas, there is a lot of movement of persons and that is the main reason why we are getting this surge in cases.”

He therefore urged the public to continue to strictly adhere to all the COVID-19 preventive protocols to avoid contracting the disease.

Health officials in the country have intensified COVID-19 education campaign and made vaccination more accessible as part of efforts to limit the spread of the virus which is wreaking havoc in other parts of the world.

Officials have warned that the country may not be able to contain a fourth wave of the virus should adherence to COVID-19 preventive protocols be laxed.